To find a Traitor
by Protectress of Dalidon
Summary: Harregale has been betrayed. Only 18 and just out of the Matrix she has been accused of killing 4 members of her crew. Which will she choose, a family who can only see Anna Grey, or those who can see both. Between M1 and reloaded. r&r please, COMPLETE!
1. The girl arrives

The girl, not much more than 18, walked with a purpose toward the two people watching the street below the building roof. They were looking for someone and that someone wasn't her. She smiled slightly, tossing her blonde-brown hair over her shoulder with a flick of her head. She was still far enough away that the keen senses of the warriors in black wouldn't know she was there, with or without the powers they each possessed, different but equally important. They turned at her footsteps, both ready to run, or fight.

"I'm looking for Trinity." Her voice was calm, almost cold and with the steel of someone hunted, someone looking for answers. The street cleared and a phone rang, shattering the silence. The woman reached into her coat, not breaking eye contact with the girl.

"Yes?" The woman said quickly, the man looked at his partner out of the corner of his eye and the girl smiled again. She knew that she had appeared suddenly on the operator's monitor and no warning had been given. It was a skill she was trying to enhance; it meant her survival at the moment.

"Tell your Op not to worry about not being able to see me, I'm hiding from some other Ops and I figured out how to avoid their eagle eyes." The woman raised a dark eyebrow, tilted her head and relayed the information to her contact. The phone was closed with a snap and a gun barrel leveled quickly at the girl's forehead.

"Give me one good reason not to kill you?" The woman demanded in her quietly deadly voice.

"The Oracle said you were the only one who could save me. She warned me that you wouldn't be willing at first but I don't have any other options. I'd rather you pulled the trigger than Locke getting his hands on me." For a moment neither spoke,

"You have seen the Oracle?" He sounded amazed, stunned in fact. The girl laughed.

"Yeah, she told me to find Trinity and ask her for help." Her focus again became the woman who had remained silent. " Apparently you went through a traitor situation before, but you knew who the culprit was. I don't."

"We don't have time for this. Tell me why you found me." She was curt and the gun was stilled aimed at the girl's head.

"I found you because I've been accused of murdering four members of the crew of the ship I was on. Three recruits and one seasoned member. The captain is still under medical observation and my little brother is missing, presumed dead. They think I did it, and I didn't, someone set us up." They looked at her in almost shock, their expressions closed and covered well. The girl titled her head to the side and suddenly spoke in a hushed whisper. "Agents are coming, you have to get out, find an exit and go. I'll be fine, they can't see me and if they do they don't care. If you want to help me meet with the Oracle, she'll know where I am." Her expression softened and her child-like features radiated fear and isolation. "Please Trinity. I need you." Without a word more she vanished, just as the sounds of heavy Agent footwear echoed on the concrete roof. Trinity cursed, matching strides with Neo as they prepared to leap to the next building top, heading for an exit not too far away.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Trinity, she appeared from nowhere and sounded like a program. I won't let you go in there."

"I'm the ranking officer here Neo, I won't let a girl who needs me die because of someone like Cypher! You would have told me if she was a program, you read her code." The pair were in the construct, they needed the space to argue this one out. Normally they talked in low tones and didn't need to inform others of their battles, but this time they could barely hold their temper, agreeing when Morpheus offered to let them use the construct to sort out their problem. The rest of the crew were avoiding them studiously. Trinity began to pace the quiet room, the walls bare plaster.

"You can't blame yourself for what Cypher did," Neo said, remembering with a sense of guilt, heavy as lead in his stomach, the taste of iron in his mouth, the day the Neb had lost so many.

"I'm not going to let an innocent die for something like that. The only reason Cypher wasn't punished was because he was dead Neo, they were looking for someone to blame, we were lucky Tank verified who the real culprit was. They might have wanted your blood, or mine, or even Morpheus'." He ran a hand through his dark hair, watching her, memorizing every detail.

"Whatever you decide we can't get her out. She's on another ship and one that won't give her up." In a moment she was on the phone to Link, the new operator, 

"I need to talk to Morpheus." The captain appeared in the room, sunglasses on, face calm. "What ship is she on?"

"The Argive. Neo is right, they will not give her to you." Trinity swore softly, beginning to pace again. "But there is a way," He paused looking at Neo, the One, who he believed would save them all.

"Tell me." She said calmly now, if her captain was going to offer a suggestion then there was a way.

"Unfortunately Trinity, you cannot be the one to approach the Argive, they don't trust women and no matter how good a fighter you are, you are still a woman and therefore in great danger. I will not send you to them but I will get the girl here without bloodshed. Trust me Trinity." Her face had closed up like a steel door; devoid of all expression she nodded slightly and told Link to get her out. Morpheus placed a hand on Neo's arm when the other man would have followed a second after.

"She's upset Morpheus, I have to be there for her. I promised."

"You are the One Neo, those on the Argive will allow you to take the girl from their ship provided you can get her to an exit and we transfer her to the Neb."

"We? We're going to the Argive and bringing the girl back here, body and all?"

"Yes, I am going with you. I have been meaning to check on the ship in question for some time now." He smiled and vanished from the program, Neo pausing for a moment, swearing and shaking his head. But then, Morpheus was hardly ever wrong about anything. Link unplugged him a moment later. Opening his eyes he pondered what his captain had said before going to find Trinity. She was sitting on her bed glaring at the wall when he came in.

"Trin I…"

"What do you want Neo?" Her voice was colder than ice causing him to frown for a moment.

"Morpheus and I are going on a mission, we'll be away for a few days at the most. You're ranking officer." His smile wasn't humorous, it was a saddened version, repeating her words. He left her room silently, hating that he couldn't find a way to penetrate the shield she still carried with her. She didn't move until he had closed the door and the turning handle had fully shut. She looked up, took a deep breath and followed, going to get some of the goop they had to eat. For a brief second she thought she saw the girl sitting across from her, arms resting on the table with a smile on her face and laughter in her eyes. But it was only her imagination. She wasn't able to save her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The streets were cold and bare as she walked towards the house, which had become a comfort to her. A woman opened the door as she approached, smiling and showing her in. She would have to wait a few minutes before she could see the lady of the house so she watched as children played with floating blocks, bent spoons and arranged each other's hair without any products. She smiled slightly, wondering who would take care of them when they made it to the real world. She was called in.

"Ah, Trinity such a nice surprise." She smiled.

"You're not surprised I'm here." The other woman laughed,

"True, but I'm still glad you are. Take a seat, I just have to give these to the children." The tray was laden with cookies, the Oracle returned a few minutes later and sat down opposite her, smiling and looking like a grandmother.

"I came because…"

"Because you met Harregale, I know. Neo doesn't want you to risk yourself for the girl does he? I always knew he would fall in love in a very strong way." Trinity blushed slightly.

"He doesn't know I'm here, I have to help her, Harregale you said. She isn't dangerous."

"Not to you or others who will take care of her, no. But if you don't keep a promise then you're fair game. I suppose they forbid you to help her, silly of them, but then that's what men do to protect the ones they love."

"Morpheus should know better, I hate being treated like a child."

"I know, and so does he. All I can tell you is that she's safe. Such a small conciliation I know, but my last visitors were interested in her too. She moved quick as a fox when she heard them." A smile crossed the Oracle's lips. "I never knew a girl could cause so many problems. Ah well, you will see her soon Trinity. But be warned, you mustn't let Neo handle this alone, he doesn't realize what she is. No, she's not a program, just a very scared and independent girl. I think you'll like her. Why don't you make a bed up and see what the cat drags in?" Trinity raised an eyebrow silently. 

"You're not going to tell me any more are you?" The Oracle laughed.

"No, I think you need to be surprised sometime dear. After all, you have your own decisions to make. Just don't let Neo go alone, he will try and you must stop him. We need him after this you know." Trinity smiled a little. "Yes, you know that. Sometimes I wish it could have been you but there you go, things don't always happen the way we plan do they?" She stood, offering the tray of cookies. "Here, have a cookie," The small smile stayed in place as Trinity completed the next part of the phrase.

"I promise by the time you're done eating it, you'll feel right as rain." 

"That's my girl. Now you go and give my regards to that man of yours, I never have any good news for that boy do I?" Trinity didn't answer; there was no need for one, the question answering itself. She left silently, the same way she had come. Something caught her attention, flashing out of the corner of her vision, black and dark purple with blonde-brown hair. She turned quickly to see if she could catch the girl, but there was no one on the street bar her. Shaking her head she made her way to the exit already arranged. For once no Agents bothered her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"She's almost at the exit, you better hurry before she sees you." Link said over his shoulder. They nodded and moved silently down the ship's corridors. A door of a former crewmember was opened and the bed was, remarkably, made and waiting. A ghost of a smile past over the lips of the older man as they delivered their cargo and went back to their posts. They knew they couldn't hide things from her for long but she had been jacked in when they arrived, searching for an elusive programmer who was being tailed by Agents. She would be a little preoccupied with that for the next few days. The other man volunteered to unplug her, knowing that she would be glad to see him. She reached the exit when it happened. Sudden gunfire shattered the glass of the phone booth, the earpiece separated from the rest of the receiver. She swore and so did the others.

"How the hell did that happen?"

"They're not Agents, they're snipers."

"Someone still plugged in did that?" Trinity was running, hiding in the shadows. She hadn't used her phone yet.

"Got a trace on them, they're on her tail." 

"I'm going in."

"No Neo, let her handle this herself. She will be alright." Morpheus was directing the operator to the nearest exit he could think of, Neo gripping the armrest to stop himself charging into the Matrix without a plan. The girl screamed from her room.

"I'll go." He dragged himself away quickly, knowing that he had only a moment to think of a plausible plan. The girl was lying perfectly still, blankets covering her completely. She was barely breathing, stopping when the door opened and he stepped in. "It's alright Arre, it's Neo." Her head appeared from amongst the scrappy covers.

"I didn't mean to scream." She murmured. 

"It's alright, I'm just making sure you're ok. Trin would kill me if anything happened to you now."

"She doesn't know I'm here yet." She paused, assessing his expression. "Something's happened hasn't it?" The girl struggled out of bed, trying to stand on shaky legs. He offered his arm as support but she leaned on the wall, stumbling out of the door and down the hallway without assistance. Link looked up quickly before going back to the screens.

"How is she?"

"So far you have nothing bar a sniper to worry about, the cops haven't come to investigate and the Agents are busy elsewhere. She got hit in the shoulder though, that guy is going to be dead as soon as she finds him." The shooter appeared in code and the girl covered a scream with her hand.

"What is it Harregale?" The captain asked.

"It's my brother, my little brother is shooting at her." Neo almost snapped. The phone finally rang. 

"Got an exit all set up," Link gave her the coordinates and monitored her progress on the screens. Morpheus was sitting with the girl.

"Tell me about your brother."

"His name in the Matrix was David, but he loved the Knights of the Round table so now he's Tristan, a little known of knight. He loves to play video games and pretend he's part of them. He's the class clown and makes people laugh. He was in grade 5, he was born 2 months early and he's 10 years old, 8 years younger than me. He was grabbed by this woman, black hair, brown eyes, medium height. I couldn't stop her and I haven't seen him since it happened." No one breathed as Trinity reached for the ringing phone. 

"I think it's time you went back to bed." Morpheus said quietly, lifting her with the ease of someone picking up a child. "You need to sleep so you're strong enough to help us find your brother." He nodded to Neo as he passed; making sure the other man realized the girl had nothing to do with the attack. She said nothing, falling asleep before being tucked into the bed and being plugged into an IV drip. Link stood at the doorway.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing, I don't think Neo wants to help anymore."

"He will. It's not the girl's fault and indeed we have more of a need to help her. If we discover who has her brother then we may find the one who killed the others." Link sighed, following the captain as he stepped out of the room and shut the door.

"You're the captain." The other man smiled.

"Yes, and you are my Operator. I'm glad you're still part of the crew."

"I made a promise Sir, I won't be breaking that." It was acknowledged with a nod and they stepped back into the lighted section of the ship. Neo and Trinity were gone, the bloodstain covered with a grubby piece of fabric. Link sighed and he and Morpheus cleaned the chair, allowing the other two members of their ship to communicate without them.


	2. The program trouble

A/N: Thanks for the review alocin, I really appreciate it J All will be revealed about her name in the next chapter or so, please let me know if you don't like anything I am open to suggestions.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was quiet when she awoke, the lights dim to simulate night. She curled back against the cold wall, clutching the blankets around her. She barely made a sound, taking deep breaths to calm her frightened nerves. The nightmare that had haunted her had come back. She thought she had got rid of the dark images when she was unplugged but there they were, clear as day and just as terrifyingly real as they had been. Footsteps outside the doorway, she closed her eyes and covered her face, not breathing or speaking, tears running down her face. Trinity looked at the bundle of blankets jammed into the bulkhead and frowned, turning and closing the door again. She waited until she heard the rustle of fabric being moved, her forehead clearing as she patrolled the deck. She must remember to talk to Neo about this. Morpheus was waiting for her when she made her circuit.

"How is she?"

"Something's not right, she was hiding under her blankets when I opened the door, and yes, I do mean hiding. She was jammed against the bulkhead." She sighed. "I still can't believe you went and got her."

"I was the victim of a similar plot to get the codes if you remember. It is because of this girl that her captain didn't have to face the Agents as I did. She is remarkable, nothing to compare to either you or Neo but she is remarkable. I intend to see what training she's had in the morning." She nodded, casting a glance towards Switch's old room, then one to the room that she and Neo shared. A sigh passed her lips.

"What if she's dangerous?"

"We will proceed with caution." She smiled.

"You want me to Op for her?"

"No. I will, I want Neo to go in with her." Trinity blinked but said nothing. She continued on her self-imposed night watch.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"You want me to go into the construct with her?"

"Just like I did for you, yes. There will be no danger to either of you. I will Op and Trinity will watch for any signs of distress." Neo took a deep breath.

"You want me in there because?"

"You are the One Neo, you have already done more for her than anyone else. She will feel safe with you." Again Morpheus had left no room for argument. Cypher's words echoed in the ears of the One. 'What do you say to something like that?'

"Alright, I'll be ready." The captain smiled and made a final check of the cockpit before retiring to his room, Neo watched the controls as they flickered with life, checking the heartbeat of the Neb itself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I don't want to go in there." She was sitting right up against the wall, legs tucked up to her chest, eyes glaring at Neo.

"We have to see what happened, we need to know what you can do." She sighed, uncurling a little.

"Will she be there?" He nodded,

"Ready to help if you need her." There was a lengthy pause and the echoes of the movement at the other end of the ship seemed loud. She stood slowly, leaning on the wall for support, still not accepting his help. Without waiting for assistance she made her way to the others. Trinity smiled a greeting, Morpheus doing the same, indicating the chair she was to use. In silence the girl settled her weight into the supports as Trinity strapped her in.

"I'm scared Trinity." The tiny voice failed to echo as the earlier noises had.

"Neo won't let anything happen to you." A moment later both Neo and Harregale were standing in the busy street of a city, the people walking towards them dressed in somber black suits with expressionless faces. She took a deep breath, casting a glance at Neo who stood in his typical image, black leather coat and sunglasses reflecting the artificial light.

"This is our Agent training program. Follow me." He started walking and she stayed close on his heels, hardly more than a shadow amongst the crowd. He was repeating the same speech he had heard when he had been first introduced into the program, the woman in the red dress walking down their right side.

"Were you listening to me, or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?" He smiled at her small shake of her head, waiting for something. "Look again." Just as it happened with him, the Agent was standing with a gun pointed at her head, but instead of panicking completely she grab Neo by the wrist, leaping to the right of the Agent, running towards the clear street just past the fountain.

"Freeze it Morpheus." A person stopped mid-stride in front of them, Harregale trying to dodge but ramming into the man, who toppled over too, remaining frozen. She looked up with frightened eyes.

"What the hell just happened?"

"I stopped the program."

"Why?" She sounded shocked, confused. Outside the program Trinity frowned at Morpheus who tapped away at a keyboard. Neo's phone rang.

"Yes?" There was a pause, she sat on the edge of the fountain, as pale as the birds overhead. He knelt in front of her, the mobile back in his pocket.

"I didn't mean to hurt you." She mumbled without looking up.

"I'm ok but why did you run?"

"I was taught to, no one stopped the program here, the object was to get away as fast as you could without getting captured or killed. If you did you ended up in a white room until the last person was caught or made it to the exit. I figured you wouldn't want to end up there first." The frowns deepened, Neo's masked better.

"In this program you don't need to run, not yet. I was explaining that anyone could be an Agent and unless a person is one of us, they are one of them. How did you get out of the room?"

"If you were in there more than 2 days they said they'd get you out. I was in there for 3 once. It was scary." Neo swallowed hard, offering her his hand.

"Morpheus, get us out of here." An exit appeared about 3 feet away and slowly they walked over to it, Harregale still not convinced that the frozen people weren't going to kill them. She refused to go out before Neo, there was no way he could make her.

"If you're the One then you're better off in the real world than in a white room. Go." He opened his eyes on the Neb, waiting to be unplugged. Trinity's silence said more than any words could, her eyes flashing hatred at the people who had tampered so much with the basic program from Zion. He stood at the girl's still shoulder, ready for her to come out of the construct. The phone rang. No one answered. He looked to Morpheus.

"She isn't moving Neo, she's scared."

"Of what?"

"Him." Trinity pointed at the screen where the frozen Agent had been, the figure was slowly clenching the trigger finger.

"Holy shit, how did that happen?"

"I don't know Neo, but we got to get her out now." He nodded, Trinity grabbing the headset from her captain. A yawning Link came in.

"What's going on so early in the morning?"

"We put the girl in the Agent program and something's gone wrong. We're trying to get her out." Neo said quickly. The exit was ringing and so was the girl's mobile, which she answered slowly.

"Arre this is Trinity, I need you to pick up the other phone and talk ok? Just pick up the other phone and put it to your ear." The sound of a shot being fired echoed through the program as the girl reached for the exit line. No one moved on the Neb, they watched the bullet inch it's way across the screen as the girl pressed the receiver to her ear. The earpiece exploded a moment later leaving the dangling end a mess of wires. Neo unplugged her.

"You ok?" She shook her head, fighting to get away from the restraints. "Hey, calm down you're out, no one's going to hurt you." This did nothing to reassure her. Once the last strap had come undone she slipped through the attempts of the crew to hold her and dashed to her room, the door shutting with a clang, the wheel turning from the inside. Link blinked a few times.

"Well, that's one way to start the day." He quickly shut up when Trinity glared at him, making for the galley with unusual speed.

"That is the worst reaction I've ever seen. Trinity, get me Zion, I think we need to tell Locke about this."

"Locke wants her dead."

"He wants to find the traitor. All we need to do is clear her name and he can start a proper search. Would someone who betrayed her own family try to save the One?" No one answered and Morpheus shrugged, heading for the core of his ship. Neo laid a hand on her shoulder. 

"I think she's scared of me."

"If I were 18 and on the run from everyone I'd be scared of you too." He smiled, knowing she was teasing him. "I'd be scared of Morpheus and Link as well. But it feels like it's more than that Neo, I can't explain it."

"You just know. We'll figure it out Trin, it can't be that hard to find a needle in a junkyard." She rolled her eyes and they both headed for the galley and the wonderful goop. Trinity delivered a tray to Harregale later, the room close enough to silent. The girl was under the bed.

"No one here will hurt you Arre, trust us." There was no answer so she left, unable to shake the feeling that there was something more wrong than the training program. She checked the files, the code streaming before her eyes on the consoles. Nothing was out of place, not a single error in the program or in the read out of its last application. There was no obvious reason for her almost getting killed by a fake Agent. 'But there has to be,' reasoned with herself, 'you're just not looking hard enough.' With a curse she left the screens, determined to work this problem out without resorting to self-name calling. Neo watched from the shadows, trying to decide how much he could ask and how far she would go to find the truth.


	3. The dreamed reality

A/N: I couldn't slip her name in this chap, I'll try next time. Thanks for reviewing, I'm glad you like it alocin, even if you just review for the sake of review I appreciate it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She was typing on the separated terminal the nest morning, eyes bleary from little sleep and no food. The shaking of her fingers was noticeable to Neo as he approached her.

"What are you doing?" She jumped in her seat but didn't stop typing.

"Putting a fence up around the comm links, I think it's loose."

"What's loose?"

"My program. It's a little rose that just pops up when the user gets upset or angry. The problem becomes that I'm the only one who can delete it. I didn't realize it spread so fast."

"How are you putting up these fences?" 

"It's like a barrier, a window if you like. It keeps the program in one spot and cuts it off from the other parts of the plant. Once it's separated I can kill it off and you'll never have to worry about it again."

"Is that what caused the glitch yesterday?" She shook her head, eyes focused on the programming she was setting up, he knew that it wouldn't interfere with the communications links, it would just stop the program. He didn't know how he knew but he did.

"I'm the glitch, I cause things to screw up." He frowned slightly, pulling up a chair to assess both her work and her history.

"So this will keep your program out and under control?"

"Yes, I must have triggered it somehow. Did I blow a kiss at that Agent yesterday?"

"I don't think so why?"

"That's how I transfer the program. It's not a virus as such, just a little annoyance. It seems to make the Agents less able to track me down, atleast for a while anyway."

"How?" Anything that could slow the Agents down was useful, they may not use it but it was knowledge and knowledge was power. 

"You ask a lot of questions don't you?" She smiled, the light making her look sickly and sad. "I think it's because I'm too fast for them, they get annoyed and a rose pops up in their vision, they get annoyed at it, another rose. You get the point. They get so distracted they forget me for long enough, I get away and can be safely at the exit without a bruise." She typed faster, the keystrokes so light they seemed almost too gentle.

"Why are you typing so lightly?"

"So I don't activate it without all the safety nets ready. A single hard keystroke can set it off; it's one of the main triggers. But it needs to be in the system first and the only other ship that is affected is the Argive and that has all the defences it needs, they probably rebooted the system and wiped it already." She shrugged. "I'm really sorry about this, I didn't realize I could screw up so badly my first time in." He was slightly taken aback, she had apologized twice within the space of a few minutes, had talked the most he had ever heard her and was more like the girl they had met when they were jacked in. 

"You're fine, you didn't screw up. We're looking for the real problem." She laughed and raised her hand.

"Ooo, pick me, pick me!" The laughter is slightly more cynical now, as though she's thinking of something unpleasant. Suddenly she hits the final key, turning to Neo, the green light travelling down her face in lines and gaps, making her seem unreal. She bites her lip, says nothing and hurries back to her room with a hunted look in her eyes. Neo looks around at the control panels and see the message, 'No matter what, someone will miss you and think of you when you're gone. Take comfort in that. The Rose.' A small cluster of deep purple, multi-petaled roses sit off to the sides of the text. Slowly the rows and columns disintegrate leaving behind the words, 'deletion complete', glowing green and cold. He frowned and went to find Trinity.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She was sitting outside the door, back pressed against the wall, head leaning back, eyes closed. For a moment his heart froze, she looked paler than he had every seen her, but then she opened an eye to look at him, raising a finger to her lips. He settled by her side, waiting for her to explain. He strained to hear what she could through the thick walls. Sobs echoed through the darkened hull of the Nebakanezzer.

"She's dreaming." Trinity whispered to the man beside her. A half scream shuddered through him, the sense of terror filling his bones.

"How long?"

"Almost an hour. She wakes, tells herself it's a dream and goes back to sleep."

"An ideas?" She shakes her head. 

"No, just that she's been hurt." She looks him in the eyes. "I think it happened Neo, I think whatever it is happened in the Matrix while she was plugged in." He swallowed.

"I hate programs Trin,"

"I know Neo, I know." They sat in silence and that was how Morpheus found them, asleep outside the girl's room, heads leaning on each other, breathing quiet and steady. He frowned, looked to the door and shook his two key crewmembers gently.

"The time has come, we need to see the Oracle." Trinity started to say something, fully awake. "She will need Neo, he will keep her safe."

"No Morpheus. She doesn't trust him, she's afraid of everyone on this ship. Jacking her in will only make it worse." She stood, begging her captain to understand with her blue-grey eyes, unable to understand how she knew. "Let me talk to her. Let me take her into the Jump program. Then we can go and see the Oracle." He sighed.

"Alright Trinity, but you know we must speak with her soon." She nodded, a hand on the door. Neo stood too, walking with Morpheus down the messy corridor, neither said anything, and the incident with the rose message was left unspoken. Sighing Trinity turned the wheel, sung the door open and entered the cold, dark room.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I didn't mean to wake you." The girl was again huddled against the cold wall, eyes darting in fear.

"It's alright, I was awake anyway." Trinity lied, seating herself on the edge of the small bed. "I heard you scream…"

"It was just a stupid dream."

"You're afraid of something and we need to know what that is so we can keep you safe." She turned to the girl. "You need to tell me the truth Harregale." The girl took a deep breath, sleep expelled from her eyes and body.

"I'm scared of them." The woman frowned, her eyes not leaving the girls.

"Of who?" 

"Them," she repeated. "I really don't think you want to know."

"Tell me." It was the same tone she had used with Morpheus. The girl sighed.

"Everyone except the Oracle, my brother and you." The air was heavy, disbelief and rejection playing in the shadows of the pipes and wires.

"You're scared of Neo?" She nodded slowly. "Why?" Shrugging the girl looked away.

"I don't trust them, I can't. If I screw up again I'll end up in the white room for sure."

"Do you know what the white room really is?" She shook her slightly, looking at Trinity as if she had gained an extra head. There was no doubt in her mind that the whiteness was a form of punishment for being inept at something, whether it was escaping from Agents or being unable to make the jump, it was a place for reflection and learning to rely solely on yourself. Trinity began to explain as the girl dressed, ready for the beginning of her re-training. Teeth set tight, the woman tried desperately to control her anger; no one should be terrified to the point of nightmares by a member of the Zion fleet.


	4. The Jump fiasco

A/N: As always, review if you like or hate it and enjoy reading!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"This is the Jump program. Here you learn to free your mind and bend the rules of the Matrix. Watch." Trinity ran to the edge of the skyscraper and jumped, black coat flying behind her. She landed with a thump on the other building roof, turning to look at the girl she had left behind. But she wasn't there.

"Neo, where is she?" The line out crackled for a moment before clearing totally.

"She's coming, she just did something, I'm not sure what." She snorted softly, watching for the girl to appear on the building roof. And she did. But it wasn't the same girl who had come into the program, dressed in black from neck to ankle; she was wearing the deep purple singlet style top that she had when she approached them the first time. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, mimicking the line of her neck and waving slightly in the breeze. Over her shoulders a thin organza cape fell, the edges lined with beading the same colour as her top. She smiled, the same self-assured smile Trinity remembered. She ran, feet light on the concrete, touching the ledge on her toes, springing into the air to hover for a moment. She wasn't going to make it. The image shuddered, changing back to the all black clothes she had worn originally, hair loose about her shoulders, eyes shut tight. Trinity swore, leaping from her perch to catch the girl. Neo appeared where she had been standing, throwing a rope downwards. Catching the end, eyes fixed on the falling girl, the woman hastened her dissent, arms close to her sides. The girl opened her eyes and the image rippled again, becoming the strong one again, Neo swore. The girl reached an arm up to grab the loose end of the rope, they were almost to the ground. The other arm she wrapped around Trinity's waist.

"I'm not going to let you fall." The rope was wound where her arm had been, secured to the black belt. Before she could be stopped, she let go, eyes closed, arms spread for balance, determination etched in every part of her. As they careened towards the road, the girl tucked her body up, using her weight to flip over, she landed on her toes and taking a set of running steps Trinity remembered vaguely from a dance class she had watched. Tipping her shoulder the girl rolled forward along the ground, pushing to her feet, slowing down as she lost momentum. Trinity's feet touched the ground lightly, as did Neo's. He had leapt from the roof as soon as the rope was tied to his partner's waist, determined to stop the rapid fall. The girl stumbled, collapsed to her knees on the road. A car screeched it's brakes and skidded to a stop just before it hit her. She swore, pushing to her feet and throwing herself forward into a sprint. The others looked at each other for a moment before discarding the rope and running in pursuit.

"Keep us updated on her location." Trinity felt the road beneath her feet, remembering when she had made her first jump and plummeted to the hard ground. She was surprised the girl hadn't done the same.

"Why don't we just pull the program?" Link asked, rattling out the path the girl had taken.

"She'll just keep running, and it's too dangerous once she's jacked in." Phone pressed to her ear, she pointed in the appropriate direction, Neo was able to run faster and get around in front of the girl so he changed his course, Morpheus would be his guide. Link swore.

"What?" Trinity dodged an elderly couple taking a stroll through the inner-city park.

"You're not going to believe this…" A cyclist rushed past, a pack of dogs hot on his heels.

"What Link?" She was getting annoyed, managing to just catch sight of the girl when something would get in her way.

"There are Agents, three on her tail."

"What!" There was no doubting that Morpheus was now talking to Neo as Link talked to her, trying to get them out before something happened. "There aren't supposed to be any Agents in the program yet!"

"Don't I know it. I can't get her on her phone so I can't get her to an exit. Why do we keep putting her in?"

"She needs to learn." Link took a moment to reply, shocked at the coldness in her voice.

"Thirty-first and Main, exit. Twenty-fifth is her."

"Thanks Link." She hung up, using her arms to aid momentum, almost flying through the crowds, none of the 'people' morphing into Agents. She could see Neo now, turning the corner onto the same streets she was, a thankful smile touching her lips for the briefest instant. Then they saw the Agents, three who looked like nothing they had ever seen before. Pushing themselves faster they saw the girl, leaping over garbage bins that her pursuers misjudged, weaving in and out of the masses of people like a cutting horse through cattle, still she wouldn't slow down, the cape missing from her shoulders. 

"Neo, we have to get to her first!" He nodded, pausing so he could take to the air and pluck her from the crowd. Trinity tried to divert the Agents, but to no avail, they didn't care about her at all, they wanted Harregale. He reached down and grabbed the girl by the waist, pulling her from the crowd. He said something to her, right against her ear, and she stopped struggling, Neo pivoting mid-air to scope Trinity up in his now free arm. She rolled her eyes a little, raising an arm for him to grab. Their hands locked around the other's wrist and he sped back to the roof where the whole mess had started, setting them down gently.

"What the hell happened just now?" The girl was the colour of the moonlight, pale against the black leather of Neo's coat sleeves as he held her by the shoulders.

"That's was normally happens, isn't it?" She seemed almost certain for a moment, then questioning at the looks of shock too quick to be masked on her rescuers' faces.

"No, that never happens on the Neb." His voice was soft, quiet and slightly breathless. She made a small 'oh' sound before turning her head away, fingers clasped together so hard the knuckles went white.

"Arre, you have to stop running as soon as your feet touch the ground," Trinity said, sitting beside the girl, Neo settling on the other, head back against the cool wall of the stairwell that lead to the top of the building.

"But then I'll go to the white room and I never want to go there again."

"The white room is called the construct," Morpheus' deep voice echoed slightly as he walked towards them. Trinity smiled a little, trust him to show up and explain everything. "That is where all the programs, like this one and the Agent training program, are loaded up so you can access them. It is also possible to load other things into the construct, weaponry, clothes, there is even a program that allows you to show others dreams now. The white room you were sent to was merely the construct, the program needed only to be rebooted and you would have been back in, or you could have been unplugged safely from there at any time." He knelt before her, removing his sunglasses to look her in the eyes. "We never, under any circumstances, leave a member of our crew in the construct for an extended period of time." She looked to Trinity, uncertain.

"Am I a part of your crew now?" The woman smiled, Neo speaking his agreeance and Morpheus copied Trinity, a smile touching his lips.

"You are a member of my crew until you take a role somewhere else." He said, watching her reaction. The girl licked her lips, watching the others thoughtfully.

"Can I make things in the construct? Harmless things, I mean." She looked uncertain.

"You can guard our ship against viruses from the Matrix if you like. I saw the work you did on our comm links and I'm impressed." He smiled reassuringly. "No one told me, I check my ship everyday. You are welcome to create whatever you like, harmless or useful, in the construct after you finish training."

"That means you have to stop running. The sooner we can get you trained the sooner we can visit the Oracle and find your brother." Trinity said with a small smile. The girl was silent a moment before setting her jaw determinedly and nodding. She lowered her eyes.

"I'm sorry I caused so much trouble, I'll listen better from now on." The captain inclined his head, standing with a smile as he replaced his sunglasses and vanished. The girl blinked and mouthed a silent 'wow'. Neo did the same, smiling at the both in turn, his smile to Trinity speaking volumes that only they would understand. The woman stood, offering her hand to her charge.

"Let's get this training done. I'm pretty sure you'll make the jump this time." The girl stood with a nod, watching as her supervisor jumped the gap easily. She mimicked her, adding a flip to soften the landing. She was rewarded with a smile and they continued with the training for almost another hour. By then the girl had mastered the Jump program and had been re-introduced to the Agent training, which was taken very slowly. They left the programs directly, not risking the white room for a moment. Neo unplugged the girl and for a second she went into blind panic, but Trinity called her, ushering her to the galley for a meal and then to bed for rest. Neo smiled, shaking his head slightly at this new side to the woman he loved. He knew that she would be leaning against the wall again that night so he prepared a comfy spot for both of them. After he and Morpheus contacted the other captains on broadcast level and Commander Locke at Zion. Trinity still had questions to ask the girl.


	5. The explainations

Neo settled himself beside Trinity in silence, the girl had fallen asleep easily, which had originally reassured the rest of the crew, but now she was having the nightmares again and they seemed to have gotten worse. He passed a cup of water to the tired woman, who smiled slightly in return. Suddenly the girl called out a name, and then a different one. The first was said in fear of the owner, the second a call for aid, a person she trusted. They could almost hear the twisted laughter that haunted her as she realized her savior wasn't there.

"I know that name, Neo." He nodded, he'd heard it our seen it too, it was from another ship or from Zion. He wracked his brain trying to come up with the where but he couldn't and nor could Trinity. The girl muttered an angry, "I won't let you touch him." Which confused them more. Who could she be talking to and who about? Trinity pressed her fingers between her eyes with a sigh.

"You want to go to sleep?" She nodded,

"But I won't leave her when she gets like this, I'm worried she'll do something stupid like jack in." He shook his head slightly.

"She's too scared of the system to do that," gently he wrapped his arms around her so she was resting on his chest, "you go to sleep and I'll make sure she doesn't do anything." Smiling slightly up at him Trinity relaxed, silently thanking the Oracle for being right about Neo, even though she knew she couldn't be heard anyway. The artificial night wore on and the girl woke as soon as the lights flickered to signal day, creeping out of her room, blanket clutched around her shoulders as it dragged over the metal floor of the Nebakanezzer. Neo looked up and saw her face before she noticed them, she looked like a normal girl sneaking out of her room. Until she caught sight of them. Her sharp intake of breath, the quick assessment of the situation, the momentary dread for the one who looked almost dead but was really sleeping. He raised a finger to his lips, a slight smile on his lips as she stirred, watching the sigh escape through sealed lips and take with it a degree of tension. But she didn't relax, simply nodded once, tucked her head down and hurried to the galley to eat before the others. He could see what Trinity meant by something stupid. Laying a gentle kiss to the top of her head he tried to slip away without waking her.

"She's up already, huh?" She had been pretending since the girl had woken.

"Yeah, I think I'd better talk to her." Trinity nodded, standing and stretching, offering her hand to him, for no reason bar to feel his warmth and know he was still there. He took her hand with a smile, tempted to pull her down but getting to his feet instead.

"Go easy on her, try to find out who she was either talking to or about, if she remembers. I'll get things ready for our training today." He smiled, watching her head for the rooms and then for the monitors. He sighed and walked to the galley, seeing the girl slowly eating her slop with as much grace as she could manage.

"You had a rough night, want to talk about it?" He knew what it was to be unable to sleep sometimes too. She only shook her head. He sighed and tried again.

"I know you don't want to talk about it, I have dreams I won't talk about too. But Trinity and I heard you say two names and something about protecting someone. Please, can you tell me?" She took a deep breath and nodded.

"But I still don't trust you." She said simply, he nodded, still not sure why that was. "I grew up in a fairly close knit community, all the kids played together, went to school together that kind of thing." She was stirring the goop, lost for a moment. "My best friend was a guy called Jason. We played a game of pretends that was very close to the Matrix. About a month and a half, no, not about." She shook her head with a scolding laugh. "It was exactly 48 days and 7 hours before I was unplugged. Yeah, I counted every moment after it happened." He could see the tears rising in her eyes, the anger and hatred. And the hurt. It was as though Trinity was staring at him through coloured contact lenses. 

"What?" He asked, voice soft in the silent air.

"They killed him. The assholes shot him through the back of the head." The tears fell now, daring Neo to say something, anything. He did.

"You saw them?" She shook her head, eyes open, tears trailing down her face, voice as cold as ice.

"No, I found the body. According to the coroner, Jason died of a drug overdose and was then shot from close range in the back of his head, about where the plug is." She put her fingers to her plug to demonstrate.

"I see, that's what you dream about?"

"No, a guy called Alex had always had a crush on me, he had even tried to beat up Jason a couple of times. He failed, Jason knew that if he lost I'd be 'fair game'," She made quotation marks with her fingers as she spoke, mockery in her voice. Neo frowned, feeling Trinity standing within earshot.

"That seems pretty horrible."

"It get worse. Alex thought that all girls were close enough to sluts, you just had to work on them a bit. He tried that on me after Jason died. I wanted nothing to do with him. My brother had started to have trouble with his friends and Alex said that unless I was, how did he say it, 'a good girl', he'd teach David what he thought. He was going to turn my brother into a creature like him." She was leaning with her arms on the table, the small container of half-eaten goop hidden behind her arms. "I was between a rock and a hard place. But I didn't give in. I was a bit battered and bruised, but I gave Alex a brilliant black eye. After that I learned all I could about computers and hacking, trying to find out what really happened to Jason. There wasn't even an investigation." She looked down, running her lips together over her teeth. Neo instinctively reached for her hand to comfort her but she sat up straighter, leaning her weight away from him.

"You said you played pretends, what were your names?"

"I was Harregale Deephaze and he," she fought the tears that now choked her voice, "he was Fabian Fleetshadow, we were like guards, we watched out for the King and Queen of the Matrix, we never met them but we did our bit to keep them safe. But then he died and everything changed, no one else asked the same questions or played the same. I gave up after that." She went back to eating her goop.

"And you still don't trust me?" She looked up, eyes stony and serious, belonging to someone much older than she was.

"No. And I don't trust Link or Morpheus either. I only trust the Oracle, my brother and Trinity. I would add Fabi…Jason, but he's dead, he doesn't count." Neo ran a hand through his dark hair; eyes troubled as she turned hers back to her food, dismissing him without a word.

"Thank you for telling my Harregale Deephaze. I'll try to help you as much as I can." He stood and left, taking two bowls of goop with him, he knew that Trinity had heard everything and anything she hadn't he could tell her. It occurred to him that Morpheus might be able to remember how he knew the name Fabian Fleetshadow, but telling the captain and Link was something he would discuss with Trinity first. She was, after all, taking responsibility for the girl.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She sat opposite Trinity at dinner that night, almost exhausted from the full day training. There was still an unease about her that made Morpheus wait to let her into the Matrix itself.

"Why don't you tell us a little about your time on the, what was your first ship called again?" Link asked, leaning an arm on the table.

"The Zanzibar. Captain Jade. I was unplugged the normal way and went through a training series similar to this one, just with consequence for failing." She shrugged, putting her empty bowl on the bench and inclining her head. "Good night everyone." After they had said their good nights and sat in silence for a while. Link turned to Morpheus.

"What can you tell us about the Zanzibar then?" He asked, all eyes turned to the captain. He sighed and explained all he had discovered.

"Jade is a very strict captain, her crew are effective and there were never any problems until recently. These have been linked to the Operator Chimera. He was one of the only Ops with plugs in the fleet."

"Was?" Neo said.

"He was relieved of duties when I told Zion what happened to Harregale. You see, the normal training programs were run, and indeed they were completed with skill. But Chimera thought it wasn't enough. Somehow he obtained a mixture of chemicals that would leave the rest of the crew asleep safely for up to three days. It was his belief that there should be more Agent work in the basic training so he created a version of all the programs for his own use. He plugged the recruits in, made sure the remaining crew were asleep and changed the program. In his programs there were only two ways out, death which lead to the construct, or a house that was accessed through an exit, of which there was only one at a time and the recruits had no help from the outside." Link swore softly.

"How did he make sure they didn't really die?"

"The bullets were a trigger to end the program, as soon as one came within a specified distance the target was in the construct. An IV drip was inserted into each recruit for the duration of the program and no one noticed any difference, believing they had taken a nap and not slept for three days. Chimera was very careful, making sure that the ship was exactly how it had been left so no one would get suspicious. There were only four recruits subjected to this, Angelos, Jane A, Diego, Tristan and Harregale. One member of crew, Flash, was also inserted into these programs as revenge, she had denied Chimera and instead found a man in Zion. That is all I have discovered and much of it she will not know, or will not say."

"What did they do with Chimera?" Trinity asked coldly.

"He is currently undergoing mental rehabilitation and there is the distinct possibility that he will remain in Zion for the rest of his life."

"He should be dead." She stood, thumping her bowl on the bench and stalking to her room in fury. Neo sighed, standing too.

"Thanks Morpheus." Link watched, his mouth still agape from what he had heard, as the One went to talk to his love.

"I hope you know what you got us into Sir."

"She needed to know Link. I'd like a full system report when you can." He left too and the Op shook his head, dazedly wandering about doing his jobs with half a mind, making sure the system check was completed first.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I will run him through with a butter knife!" She hissed, hands tightening on the bed edge.

"You won't, they don't have butter knives in Zion yet." She glared at him, but he sat next to her, running a hand lightly over her cheek.

"Back off Neo." He shook his head.

"You couldn't have done anything to protect her Trinity and you know it. All you can do is help her now." Her eyes were so cold he almost succumbed to his desire to flee, let her calm down and try again later. But this was Trinity, his Trinity. There was no later, just now. If she was angry she would stay angry, just hide it until it burned her, and he couldn't let that happen to her.

"Why would someone do that Neo?"

"Because they aren't us and they never will be." She lowered her eyes. 

"I want to help her Neo, but I don't know how."

"Maybe we should try and find this Fabian Fleetshadow or atleast figure out what happened to him. You train her like she was just another recruit and I'll see what I can dig up." Finally she smiled, resting her head on his hand and he sighed gratefully, a Trinity in pain was something that tore him to shreds inside.

"I'll do my best Neo."

"That's all I'd ever ask of you." They didn't stay long in the room, taking up their guard outside Switch's old room. She was still missed after all the time that had past and neither had forgiven Cypher his betrayal. And they wouldn't. For the first time since arriving on the Nebakanezzer, the girl slept right through the night and a little after 'day' began. She worked harder than ever at her training and for three days no one kept watch, the ship silent bar the humming that was ever present, even in the darkness.


	6. The Oracle

"I know that it must come as some surprise to you, Harregale, but I believe you are ready to see the Oracle." Morpheus smiled at the girl reassuringly. She had been into the Matrix twice since having completed her re-training and neither time had she failed. It didn't matter that she wouldn't go in without Trinity, to the captain all that mattered was she no longer ran without thinking. She looked him over with a skeptical eye.

"You, want to put me, into the Matrix. And you want me to see the Oracle again? Sir, are you sure you're feeling well?" Morpheus smiled, Neo raising a hand to his mouth to smother his laughter and Link had to face the other way. Harregale looked up at Trinity who hadn't even smiled. She did raise an eyebrow and slightly shrug her shoulder, indicating that Morpheus never really acted quite normally.

"Yes, I want you to see the Oracle now that I feel you're ready. Trinity and I shall accompany you, Neo and Link will provide the support here. I don't believe we should have any trouble." He smiled again. "The Oracle will…"

"Tell me everything I need to know. I know, my old captain told me." She nods, the sadness and guilt normally evident when she spoke of her time before the Neb missing. "If everyone thinks I'm ready I'll go." She shrugs and the others know that 'everyone' consisted only of Trinity, it had since the beginning and it would until the end, or until the others gained her trust. The crew moved into position, Morpheus, Trinity and Harregale ready to be jacked in. the captain was readied first and as Link approached the girl to plug her in, he noticed she was watching Trinity and the One. They smiled slightly at each other, exchanged a soft kiss and then he plugged her in. The girl looked at Link with questions in her eyes.

"When you're older, ok?" He says teasingly, she pokes her tongue out at him, which proves his point. With a wave he inserts the spike and they appear in the Matrix, Trinity and Morpheus in their all black clothes, Arre with her deep purple top, a cluster of roses, fake but beautiful, pinning her hair back from her face. She smiles at the others.

"Let's go talk to the Oracle shall we?" They nodded, filing out of the small room, leaving the ringing phone unanswered. Neo and Trinity hung back, following Morpheus and Harregale as they walked towards the house of the Oracle.

"No car huh?"

"No need." The girl shrugged, uneasy. She turned to Trinity.

"Does she ever give good news?"

"Sometimes. She told me I'd love the One, and that's good."

"Not at the time it wasn't." She pursed her lips, how was she going to get over this fear? "Neo?"

"She never has good news for me, part of being the One I guess." The girl gave a half-hearted laugh, looking around her with nervous eyes. Trinity began to tense up. Her eyes caught Neo's and the silent message passed between them, 'she's going to run', 'I know'. But it was after the visit and the cookie that it happened.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The house was clean, the other waiting in another room.

"How have things been with Morpheus and the others, honey?" The woman asked, pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven.

"Good, I don't trust them but I'll do what I have to to keep them safe."

"You never did believe it was just a game, did you?" The girl shakes her head. "Smart kid, a little too smart. But you have a question for me, don't you?"

"Did he really have to leave me Oracle?" The tears flicker in her eyes, the question repeated in them.

"Honey, you know I can't tell you that any way you want to hear it. He went because it was time. You went because it was your time. Do you know how long it's been?"

"108 days, 4 hours and 15 minutes. Since he died atleast. I made sure that there was a record of how long I was out for." The woman smiled.

"I think you miss him a bit too much."

"He was my other half, how can I not miss him?" She was slightly angry, teeth beginning to set on edge.

"You need to find your brother, and I can tell you, it isn't going to be pretty when you do."

"I know. It's too late for him isn't it?" The woman nodded.

"But it will be your choice what happens to him. There is a man you must save, he will help find others who will be very important and he must be freed tonight or it will all be too late. You have a tough choice honey. You have to chose what's more important, your Matrix family, or the family that can see you in both worlds."

"I don't like the sound of that at all."

"I know, take a cookie, it'll make you feel better." The girl tilted her head to the side.

"You don't say that to the others."

"A change is as good as a holiday, honey, and Lord knows I don't get any of those." They both laughed, the girl taking a big bite from her chosen cookie. "There you go. I'll leave it up to you to get the others to him, they'd just try to leave you behind otherwise." She smiled,

"Ok, I'll look out for…" She paused, blinked and looked at the woman. "Did you do that?"

"Do what, honey?"

"Nothing, it's alright." She smiled. "I better go, we have a few things to do." The woman nodded, taking a moment to talk to Trinity.

"You watch her, honey, she's going to need you and if you've found that boy, she's going to need him too. I hate giving bad news to good people, you know I do. And for once I didn't have the heart to tell someone. She doesn't know what's waiting for her and I'm to blame."

"We'll protect her, you only tell us what we need to hear." The women smiled slightly.

"You tell your man I don't have any news for him, no news is good news you know." She smiled again, the four leaving quietly, this time taking a car to their exit. The streets were lined with buildings that reached to the sky, the tops so high you couldn't see them out the closed window. She gasped, the building that moved past them at a crawl since the traffic was at a standstill. A moment later she was clambering over Trinity, who swore, opening the door and running towards the entrance to the building.

"Go after her, Neo!" Morpheus said, "Trinity and I will get out and track her."

"No, I'm going with Neo,"

"Alright, we'll all go." He quickly told Link what was happening, the trio following the girl on foot quickly. They caught her, she was standing in the alley, watching the doorway.

"What do you think you're doing?" Trinity demanded.

"There's a man, he's near the top floor, he's in a cream suit and is surrounded by glass. He's thinking about the Matrix and about how fake the world is. We have to get him out."

"How do you know all this?

"I saw it at the Oracles house as I eat my cookie." The woman looked to Neo, who shrugged almost indiscernibly.

"How do we get in?"

"Pretend I'm sick, that my parents work there…" The rest of the plan flowed so quickly the Operator almost fell off his chair when he got the requests from his captain.

"Everything you need is the shop down the road, it's all there and I didn't put anything there!" They took advantage of that, and within a few minutes they were standing out the front of the glass building, ready to go into the unknown, Link having nothing to give them except blueprints and the names of some employees that had a girl the same age as Harregale.


	7. The glass building

The light changed as the four walked into the office complex. No one questioned the, used to seeing people in black walking around. Most were more curious about the sickly looking girl, who was surely no more than 12 or so. She walked slowly, feet dragging, the woman in black smiled, taking the girl's hand as they approached the steel elevator, the colour contrasting to the blue glass all around them. A woman stepped out, catching a glimpse of the girl she stopped. 

"Don't worry sweetheart, you'll get better soon, I had the same thing a few weeks ago and it only lasts a day or two." She smiled at Trinity. "If you need anything for her just ask, ok?" Trinity returned the smile, the girl waving as they stepped into the elevator, the doors closing on the sounds of the stranger's heels clicking on the cold tiled floor. 

"That was weird." Harregale said, quickly becoming healthy again. They ran through necessary details and three floors later a woman with black hair dressed from neck to toe in leather as dark as her hair walked towards the only piece of furniture in the room, the desk o f the receptionist. Two men followed a pace behind, one with his arms by his sides, the other with his behind his back. The girl was out of sight. The woman with blonde hair smiled, fake and snakelike.

"You go right through, you're expected." No one smiled, walking past her in silence. After they left one glass walled room and entered the next the woman picked up her phone,

"Three. Her and two men." There was a pause. "Ok." She put the receiver back on the hook and ignored the shattering glass from the next room.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*

The vase fell with a crash. Morpheus indicated to the double doors that opened away from them, Neo running down on wall, Trinity the other, their images on the blue glass tinted and appearing cold. The girl made straight for the door, sprinting to one of the four desks in the massive room that opened from the doors. A man in a cream suit was standing, incased in glass at the other end of the room. It was atleast 300 metres from the doorway. The girl was about to make a dash to the next desk when she heard the laughter of the woman she wanted to scratch blind. The woman had dark hair, almost black, and similar eyes. Walking with a definite purpose she spoke.

"Welcome to my offices." Her French accent made the room echo with her laughter and mockery, Harregale grasped the gun in her sweaty palm, wanting to use it but knowing she had to wait. "I see you recognize the boy, he learns so fast and is so, malleable." The laughter came again and the three standing just beyond the doorway studied the boy carefully, making no change in appearance. Harregale wanted to peek out from behind her shelter but knew that it would ruin all they had worked to achieve that day already. The boy was no more than 10, his blonde hair newly cut, the waves falling softly at his ears. He walked by the woman's side, steel grey eyes unblinking as they approached the crew of the Neb.. She was dressed as a businessman's wife, her dress complementing her complexion and her figure, the boy dressed in a suit, making him appear to be a miniature of the woman's husband.

"You were expecting us." Morpheus said, his voice cool in the lighted room. Everywhere was glass, the roof, the walls and the floor. She laughed.

"Yes, I was wondering how much longer you would wait before freeing these two. The man you can have I suppose, my husband won't miss him. He's too busy with some human to bother about such things as you. I rather like the boy though," she purred, running a hand through his hair. "He will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal." Trinity pulled out her gun, pointing it at the woman for a second before shooting the glass around the man at the end of the room. He staggered out of his enclosure, slowly making his way on unsteady feet towards the only exit. The woman strutted towards them she smiled, sliding close to Neo, completely ignoring the death glare Trinity was giving her. Harregale fidgeted under her desk, she hated being the one left out of the know.

"You want him? Too bad." She whispered sultrily in his ear. Given a small signal from her hand, the boy pulled a small pistol out of his pocket, watching the stumbling man carefully, his sharp eyes those of a killer. The woman was blocking the doorway. "Such a pity you have no one to save him." She cooed.

"Such a pity your secretary can't count." Retorted the voice of the girl, appearing from under her desk. For once it was a good thing she was invisible. "You think I'm going to let you shoot this guy? You are stupid." A smile touched the girl's lips even as those who knew her saw the pain flash in her eyes. It was her brother who had the gun poised to kill the man. "I won't let you do it kiddo, you'll have to think of something else."

"She's going to take me back home, Anna, she said that since I did such a good job getting rid of the others and wounding the woman, she'll take us both home. But you have to come now." His voice was honest, he believed everything he said. The witch smiled. The words 'you killed them' formed on the girl's lips and her sibling nodded coldly.

"You see, he is such a charming young man. Now," she said to the boy, "shoot the man and I'll take you home." He raised the gun, firing at the man's head. As if in slow motion the girl pushed off the ground, arm outstretched to catch the bullet in her hand. It lodged itself in her palm and she screamed. Within moments the boy's gun was empty, but not a single shot had hit the man, Harregale moving fast enough to collect them all in her limbs. She landed with a scream, blood covering most of her body, tears streaming down her face. No one moved, the woman shocked and angry, heavy footsteps echoed in the building, two men stood side by side, indistinguishable. They looked down at her, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, white skin catching the light.

"Give me a gun," she said through her pain, reaching up slightly, fingers level with an ankle, "My horse is screaming, give me a gun." The quote was from an old movie, the main character haunted by her past and the colour red. They liked the film, dropping a gun just within her reach. She smiled, raising it to her temple, the voices of the men and woman blurred in her head, the expressionless faces of the crew behind her. She smiled again, apologizing to her brother. Her finger tightened on the trigger and for a moment all was still. Then the boy collapsed, a bullet lodged in his forehead from the gun his sister held in her trembling and bloody hand. The room emptied, the woman grabbing the man in the cream suit by the tie and leading him away before the pooling blood could touch his shoes.

"Such a waste." She sneered as she passed, tempted to kick the interfering child and make her suffer more, she was sure the red liquid would stain the blue glass. The hurried footsteps of the other three pounded like sledgehammers in the girls skull.

"I'm so sorry, I just couldn't let him hurt you." She mumbled to Trinity as the woman bent over her, scooping the limb body into her arms, smearing blood on her leather clothes. Trinity said reassuring nothings, unable to understand exactly what the girl had meant. Morpheus smashed one of the walls, glass shards falling to the street below.

"Link, we need an exit and we need one now." Neo said, trying to take the bundle from his love, who shook her head, face flat. They leapt through the gap, landing with ease on the nearest rooftop, running hard for the security phone on the wall of the stairwell.

"Is she going to make it?" Trinity asked, supporting the weight of their charge as someone pressed the phone to her ear.

"She's going to have to." Was the only reply she got, Neo insisting that Trinity went out next, Morpheus and himself preparing to load a medical program into the construct to fully asses the damage both to the residual self image and to the real body of the girl. A fearful apprehension hung over the crew. The damage proved to be superficial, nothing that time and rest wouldn't heal, along with some regeneration of tissues similar to the process used when a person is first unplugged. The worrying part was that she didn't open her eyes, didn't answer when they spoke to her and no one could get through the darkness they could feel over her.


	8. The black construct and the King reveale...

It was like wandering around in the construct, except it was sunk in darkness, not bathed in light. Occasionally there were noises, images from somewhere else, the softness of a cloth on her face, the comforting voice of the woman, who had looked so different before, in her mind's eye. There was the coolness of water trickling down her throat when she could find the energy to ask for it and the light that burned her eyes when she tried to focus on the world beyond the comforting dark. And there was the replay of her brother's body crumpling, falling heavily to the cold tiled floor, his confused look as he watched her trying to protect the man. Had she managed to save him? After David/Tristan had stopped standing things had started to mist into the black that held her. She tried to estimate how long it had been, tried to add it to the time she had missed the person who could bring her out of the gloom. An image stuck to the blackness, the flowers that had sat at the edge of the playground creating a sense of reality and stability. There was a seat near it too, she remembered, frowning slightly. The memory was so clear. They had sat there the day after he had asked her to tell him the question, saying that he would tell her the one that he couldn't get out of his head. It had been raining when they had said, 

"What is the Matrix?" As one voice not two, sitting in detention. 

*

"You'll need a name." He said, eyes the colour of mahogany focused somewhere beyond the world they could touch, beyond the yard.

"Rose." She supplied, liking it. "Because then I can have thorns and people won't mess with me." He had shaken his head.

"What about Harregale?" He reached behind her head to where the flowers were blooming.

"Harregale? What's that?" There was a cluster of small purple flowers on a stem in his hand, he took the thorns off and pushed it gently behind her ear.

"This kind of rose. You be Harregale and I'm David." She laughed.

"No, you be Fabian, Fabian Fleetshadow." He smiled at her.

"Ok Harregale Deephaze. We better get to work." She nodded seriously, talking for the rest of the day together.

*

That was where she had written the time on the concrete supports. In blue chalk, the numbers smudged as she changed them every day. The harder she tried to get a different colour, the more she found blue. That had been his colour, just as she had been the deep purple of her namesake, he had been the blue of the clear sky. She looked sadly where the numbers had been and slowly she could make out the last number she had written there, 118. She swore, staggering backwards, that wasn't right, it had only been 48 when she had etched it into the grey slabs last! She can't have missed that many days! She called out,

"Fabian!" No answer. "Trinity?" Dead silence. "Neo? Morpheus? Link?" Her voice strained, the fear now edging its way in. Why couldn't they hear her? She pulled out her phone, dialing the number she had learnt by rote. A static line answered her, the voice fading in and out.

"Get me out, I want to get out of here." The blackness turned to white. She screamed. Why was it that the thing that children fear had become her shelter from what others ran to? It seemed she preferred the tunnel to the light at the end.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They had been amazed, ten days had passed since she had been shot, ten days and still she would only wake for a few moments, enough to stumble to the lavatory, to sip water, to say how sorry she was she had failed again. And once, she had told them how much she missed Fabian, the boy whose name still hadn't found a reference to Neo or Trinity. 

"I think that there's more to this lack of recovery than the physical difficulties." Morpheus said one evening, watching Trinity's vigil over the girl's bed.

"She can't accept that it was her brother. What did Locke say?" They were pulling at straws.

"He was surprised but he has dropped all charges against her. She is to be placed on another ship, when I am satisfied with her recovery." Her blue-grey eyes caught his dark brown ones. They both knew that something was holding her back. Then she flexed her fingers, frowning and mouthed the word 'no'. The captain rose, getting a cup of water. Then the girl spoke again, clearer and much more definite.

"Get me out, I want to get out of here!" Her eyes opened suddenly and she screamed, the same one they had heard once when she had started to go into the construct. Trinity swore.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The plugs were inserted, both opening their digitized eyes at the same time. They were standing in almost total blackness, but they could both see, the girl holding herself back so she didn't throw herself at the first person she to come to her aid. Trinity smiled slightly, watching the emotions flicker across the screen. She had wanted to be the one to help Arre but Neo had insisted and so she waited on the outside.

"Can you see?" She asked.

"Yes." He replied, looking around. "How long has it been like this?"

"On and off since I got back I guess," the bench was within sight so she walked over, indicating that he should sit. Neo did so quietly, watching her as she stood a little way off. She looked up, eyes questioning.

"I am still going to be considered the traitor?" He shook his head,

"Morpheus made sure that you wouldn't have to face that when you get better." She nodded.

"I need to tell you something…" He nodded,

"Ok."

"I failed you and I'm sorry. I just can't do everything that Fabian and I did, I can't handle the responsibility we shared. I can't keep you both safe." She was pacing, running a hand through her hair, she felt so guilty. She had been out of the real world too long and now she couldn't get back, she was endangering one of the people she was meant to protect.

"What are you talking about Arre?"

"I… I really tried. But you need to have a pair of us, not just one." She lowered her eyes. "I miss him too much to keep this up, I'm so very sorry, my King." She dropped a curtsy, biting her lower lip.

"King?" He asked, brows knit together. "I'm the King from your game?" She looks up, nodding.

"And Trinity is the Queen, it was my job to dispose of those who wished her harm. You were Fabian's, and I've been too self-absorbed to do anything useful for over ten days. I need to get out of here and get back to my job, atleast until you find someone to replace me." Here she started to get more worried, finally telling someone her troubles. "But I can't get out, there's no doors, no phones, no nothing. I know that you've loaded me into the construct otherwise you wouldn't be here. You can leave anytime you want. But I'm stuck." She searched his eyes with hers, hoping he understood. "I'm so sorry."

"We can get you out, there's a way where there's a will. Can you tell me anything else that may help?"

"There's a file, it's called 'Alleyway." I think this is part of it, somehow. I don't know how, but I can feel the walls, they're brick and go up further than I can reach, even jumping." Neo nodded, handing his phone to her.

"This will give you a way to contact us. We'll get you Arre, don't worry." She smiled.

"I know you will, even if it means you have to unplug me, you'll get me out of here." Before he could reply she had walked over to a computer that appeared out of nowhere, typing away at a program to stop her from going mad. He left silently, not knowing just how much they could help but determined they weren't going to pull the plug on her, not yet.


	9. The aknowledgement and the discovery

"It seems that there is something about the boy, Fabian, that is the key to her both in the Matrix and in this world." Morpheus said, watching the other members of the crew with interest. "I have heard of such connections but never seen them for myself. It is very much like they do not know what to do without the other, I am still trying to find the boy, he has been on a ship for a long time, not returning to Zion recently."

"The only ship like that is the Argive." Trinity said softly. "That's why she looked so confident when we met her."

"There is a problem, the Argive has disappeared, there has been no communication since we brought Harregale here." The silence was deafening.

"Load me up." Trinity said in a cold voice.

"Why?" Neo asked.

"I want to be the one to tell her we can't get her out until we know how she got in." She stood, Morpheus holding out a hand to still her.

"No Trinity. We can get her out, and we can do it at any time, the appearance of the seats and the computer indicate that things may be inserted at the discretion of the those inside. We need to find the program she mentioned, I believe it will shed light on an otherwise dark subject." With that he dismissed them, turning to walk back to his room, no doubt to find the Argive and Fabian Fleetshadow. Trinity sat down at the table where they ate, staring slightly blankly into the air around her. Morpheus had made her think. What would happen if they never found the boy, what if he was dead? The sounds that normally made her feel comfortable on the hovercraft made her skin crawl, they sounded alien, unfamiliar, unyielding. Neo sat next to her, his hand finding hers, fingers touching ever so softly. The questions changed, what if something happened to Neo? What if it was her inside that black construct and Neo so far away she couldn't feel him? What if he had been missing for 118 days? What if he was dead? She shuddered under her worn clothes, knowing his eyes were clouding, becoming darker with worry. She closed her blue-greys for a moment, just letting the contact of hands warm her. How would it feel to loose this?

"Trinity?" His voice was soft, filled with so many things she opened her eyes and looked into his.

"I have to talk to her, I have to know what she had with him." He didn't answer for a moment.

"Why?" She smiled, he asked that a lot, about everything. He had such a thirst for knowledge.

"I can see myself in her Neo, I can see the me that lost you in her eyes."

"You will never loose me."

"I used the past tense Neo. I lost you for only a few minutes, she has lost someone for over 100 days. If they were her you…" She tried to explain, the words locked in her throat. "I just have to know Neo, it's one of those things." Her eyes started to harden and he knew that she was imagining what it would feel like to be without him, she always closed up when it started to hurt. He nodded softly, 

"I'll Op if you like."

"No, I want to see you when I open my eyes here." Without a word he understood. There was a truth to face in the black world, the black backdrop that hid things from view. They walked quietly to the open section of the ship; the girl still plugged in because she didn't want to leave that safety.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Trinity appeared suddenly, looking around for the girl but seeing only buildings, trashcans and empty boxes, the sky hidden from view by stairways and washing and roofs. She frowned, Neo had said there was nothing in this place. She pulled out her phone.

"Operator."

"Link, what's happened?"

"It looks like the construct is running underneath a program, the whole thing is in code, not as complicated as the Matrix, but too complicated to decode into visuals." She swore.

"Where's Arre?"

"You head straight down the street you're on you should find her." On swift feet she headed down the alley, wondering why she felt so worried. She heard the voices then, teenagers, probably around the same age as Arre.

"You want it, come and get it." A guy said, makings kissing noises.

"Give me back my plant." The voice was calm and cold, causing Trinity to almost miss a step. When had the girl ever sounded like that?

"I've already told you Anna darling, you give me a kiss, I'll give you the plant."

"Go to hell." There was a scuffle and Trinity pushed ahead faster, unable to see anything except bricks and bins. A cry, held back, touched the air.

"Stupid bitch!" The male voice screamed, "you bit me, you fucking bit me!" He seemed incredulous.

"I told you to give me back my plant." Shattering terracotta echoed in the air, along with a loud and heartfelt denial. Cruel laughter mocked the girl and then the world warped. Trinity stopped running, trying to steady herself, she swore, the buildings dissolving into the blackness she had been told about. The girl was on her knees, tears wracking her body as she cradled a depotted rose.

"Arre!" The woman called, watching as the girl raised her tear-stained face to meet her gaze.

"It's all I had left of him, Majesty, they pulled up the one at school, it's all I had left…" She trailed off, eyes dropping back to the plant. Trinity was glad she had learnt to control her features, since when had she become royalty?

"Tell me about him." She kneeled beside the girl, a hand resting on her shoulder.

"He was everything to me, especially after we started to find out about the Matrix. He was my other half, Majesty, he made me whole." She tried to explain, tried to get the words out in a way Trinity would understand. "He was my One."

"Neo is the One."

"Yes, but he's also your One, see?" She looked up, the tears stopping slowly. "I keep remembering what happened before I was unplugged and I miss him, I can't help it, I miss him so much." That was all the woman needed, the simpleness of the explaination shook her inside. Neo was the One, but he was more, he was her One. She almost swore. Sometimes being right wasn't a good thing. The shook her head, fingering the slowly dying leaves. "But I'm stronger than this, I can beat this." She took a deep breath and her hard eyes met Trinity's. "Find me an exit and I'll do what I can for you until I'm relocated. I don't think Morpheus wants to keep me forever." Her smile was wry, cynical, teasing. 

"We're currently finding the program you mentioned. What did you want us to know about it?"

"It's worked itself into the construct, or atleast this version of it. I need to see the original version so I can get the mutation out of the main drives. I know you or Link or Neo or even Morpheus could do it, but it's my responsibility. If you get stuck in the program, which can happen because of a fault the programmer didn't rectify, you can die for real. I won't let that happen." The woman was slightly shocked, they had run so many system checks and diagnostics that there was no way a rogue program could have found a way to hide. Her phone rang.

"We have trouble, the Argive crew mutinied and one of the recruits is reported dead. We found him, Trinity," Neo said softly. "Fabian is dead." Her face was composed and the girl didn't suspect a thing.

"I have to go, there are sentinels in the area," it wasn't exactly a lie, "I'll get you an exit and you can help keep this ship safe." Harregale nodded, eyes lighting with the implication that they may need her help. The telephone appeared off to Trinity's right.

"Let's go." They came out quickly, and it was discovered that the dark haired warrior had been right, as soon as their feet touched the metal floor the proximity alarm triggered. All crew hurried to their respective posts and the ship was sunk in darkness, the only light the glowing red belonging to the destroyers.


	10. The revelation

There was no damage, the attackers had past without harm. The captain was concerned that they had come to the area the Neb was in, it had been considered fairly safe and to see the machines meant that something was more than wrong. Morpheus sent word to other ships that the sentinels had come down, setting the girl to make sure the communication links were secure. The new virus protection grids had been fine-tuned, the basic coming from Zion when a ship was downed by a rogue Internet virus, Harregale altering it to suit the ship and the systems that were already in place to confine and destroy her rose. There was a heavy silence on the ship for some hours; Link was at the Operator station, running through the construct with a fine-tooth comb when she saw it. Placing a light hand on his left shoulder she pointed mutely at a section of code he had yet to check.

"That's it. That's the Alleyway." They had been trying to find a record of it but there had been none, Jade finally disclosing that it had been a creation of Chimera and there was no known way to disentangle it from the construct. Typing furiously the Op tried to delete the program. He muttered under his breath. The captain appeared, having heard the conversation from his position and carrying a concern for the safety of his crew should the program warp the construct.

"Can you get rid of it Link?" He asked, his eyes flowing the code, the Op shook his head.

"It's locked itself into that black version, I can't separate them and it's really vicious." The girl walked over to one of the chairs, tapping at a screen to get the system up.

"What are you doing?" Trinity had just walked in, seeing the worried expressions on the faces of the two men and the grim one on Harregale's.

"I'm clearing the construct of my mess. Link, I'll need to go into the white one first, with a computer link to the black." The captain raised a hand.

"I will not allow you to go in alone."

"I'll go." Neo put a hand on Trinity's shoulder, a gesture to keep her from volunteering. The girl looked at him for a brief moment.

"Fine, but if things get nasty, you get out, the One or not." He almost took a step back, seeing what he had been told was there, a glimpse of the no-nonsense, my-way-or-the-high-way, Trinity in a girl who could appear no more than twelve. He nodded.

"My call."

"Your call." They moved to the chairs. A tone sounded in the communication bay and Morpheus left Trinity and Link to plug the others in. The woman froze, remembering what the Oracle had said.

"Neo, I can't let you do this." Her eyes were haunted as he looked at her in confusion.

"It's not dangerous Trinity, I'll be fine. I have to go."

"No, I will. You stay out here." He frowned, trying to understand, moving again towards the seat. "Neo." One word brought his attention to her again, one word was all it took to make him understand. His eyes locked with hers.

"Alright." The girl looked at them for a moment before sighing and stating,

"Same rules, you get out no matter what. I'm not needed, you are." 

"Don't be ridiculous," The woman said, settling back into the supports, "We need you."

"I'll do my best Majesty." Neo slipped the spike into the plug for Trinity, moving over to the girl.

"Take care of her Arre, I can't live without her." His words were whispers on his lips, her eyes caught his.

"If only one of us comes out, it'll be her. I promise." There the flash was again, the way she accepted that she might not come out, that she would die fighting, there were more similarities than any cared to admit at that point. Neo nodded, the spike gliding smoothly into it's port. Quickly he went to stand by Link's shoulder.

"Link, I need a computer with grunt, not something to play games on." The Op rolled his eyes, enhancing the machine for the girl. Morpheus took his place at the other shoulder.

"Why aren't you in there Neo?"

"Trinity." Morpheus looked to him questioningly. "The Oracle told her something. She told me to stay here."

"The Oracle says things for a reason." Was the only reply as they watched the pair inside cornering the program.

*~*

"Cut it off from the…"

"It's not responding, the barriers aren't enough." The girl swore, throwing up her hands, taking out her phone.

"Operator."

"There's no way to do this here. Can you isolate the black construct?"

"Yes, I, can…" The keys outside typed as furiously as those inside, trying to assess damage and prevention. "Done."

"Load me directly into Alleyway."

"What?"

"You heard me Link, I got this bloody thing in here I'll get it out. The only way to do it is to erase all the parts of the black construct I brought in with me. Get the Queen an exit and me loaded up, I don't have time to argue." She snapped the phone shut, taking the cold blue glare from Trinity with her own.

"I'm here to protect you Arre,"

"But it was my job to keep you safe first. There's no telling what Alex will do, I will not risk you getting killed."

"Alex?"

"The program, like the construct was downloaded into me sometime. The commands for activation are those damned nightmares I had when I first came here. By loading me in you must have transferred them to the ship. Which is why they stopped." She shook her head. "Chimera said that we had to watch out for nightmares, that if we had them we hadn't been working hard enough. I think this was his way of making sure we pushed ourselves all the time."

"I am not leaving you to face these things alone."

"Yes you are, my call. You want to fight me on this, fine, but not now."

"I am the ranking officer on this ship, and if you don't like it…"

"Rank or no rank you are far to important to be deleted by a fucking programmed bully!" The girl shouted angrily, causing everyone to stay silent a moment. "Now, I'm going to wait until you're out, and then I am going to clean up this mess and get rid of Alex once and for all."

"Alright, call us if you need us." The girl nodded, visibly relaxing.

"Ok."

"Link, get me an exit."

"You sure? That is the nastiest piece of programming I have ever seen, you know, bar the Agents."

"She can handle it."

"Alright, you're the boss." The phone appeared, sitting on a table. It began to ring. Trinity turned back to the girl to again tell her she would be back if she were needed, but she stopped. 

"What is it?" The girl's face was tense, eyes closed.

"It hurts, shit," she took a deep breath. "Ok, I can do this. Shit."

"Arre, what is it?"

"He's hurt, real bad. I get flashes sometimes of what he's feeling. He's hurt and he's dying." Her breaths became more even. "Get out, just let me get on with this."

"How do you know?"

"Are you saying you can't feel it when Neo gets hurt?" She rolled her eyes. "Are you going to let me get rid of the program or not?" The woman picked up the receiver, pressing it to her ear, eyes locked with the girl's, she disappeared.

*~*

"He's alive." Were the first words hat passed her lips as she opened her blue-grey eyes. She looked to her captain. "Morpheus, she says he's alive and I believe her."

"Is that possible?" Link asked.

"With the amount we don't know about their connection, I think it is." She was running a hand through her hair as she watched the girl standing in the blackness on the screen.

"Trinity," Neo said, catching her gaze. "You didn't answer her before." His eyes were searching and she smiled a little.

"Neo, I don't need to feel when you're hurt, I know. I feel your heartbeat right next to mine." He nodded, amazed that something that could have sounded so romantic and possibly sappy didn't, she said it so certainly that it was a fact.

"We can reach the ship." The captain said.

"Let's hope we're not too late."

"Wouldn't someone have already collected the bodies?" Neo asked, confused.

"The Argive crew were not welcome in Zion, they made enemies in the fleet. The ship will be collected soon but the bodies will be left for the machines." Neo swallowed.

"I hope she's right. I hope he's still alive."

"We all do man," Link put in, "and not just for his sake. She's going to be destroyed on the inside if he dies." The ship lifted from its resting-place within a few minutes, speeding towards its target.


	11. The Alleyway

The laughter made her open her eyes. The overwriting of the black construct had triggered the Alleyway, and hence he was there too.

"So, the little rose has come out to play. Where's your hero Anna, waiting until you need him to make a heroic rescue?" He was mocking her, her eyes found his, her body still at ninety degrees to his.

"I don't need help to get rid of you Alex." He laughed again.

"But you do. I'm not a pushover like Jason was. You'd think he'd get sick of you after a while. I mean, it's not like you put out for him." Her teeth clenched.

"He stayed with me because he cared Alex. Something you can't do."

"Oh, I care. I care enough to give you a choice. You can let me have what I want, or, I can beat the living shit out of you." He smiled.

"Hmm, though choice," she replied sarcastically. "I choice option c. I beat the shit out of you." He laughed, running forward and throwing a punch at her face. She leaned back, turning a round off into a move that knocked him into the nearest wall.

"You bitch!" He screamed, putting a hand to his lips, taking it away to reveal blood. He spat. "You're going to pay for that!"

"On the contrary, I'm paying you back for all the times you tried to beat up," She almost said his true name, the pause only noticeable to Link. "Jason, all the times you made me cry and all the threats you made. This is paying off your debt Alex. I owe you nothing."

"You do actually, it's because of me that he stuck around for as long as he did." The boy was advancing threateningly, readying himself for his usual attacks. She waited with a smile.

"Yeah, and you're only an asshole because you have nothing better to do."

"Pretty much." He threw a feint at her head, kicking to knock her knees out from under her. Harregale leaned her upper-body back as she lifted off the ground, aiming a two-legged kick at the boy's chest. He failed to block it, landing in a rubbish bin as she used a one-handed cartwheel to stay on her feet.

"You know, I think you've forgotten who I am." She tilted her head to one side as she spoke. "I mean, you try the same old moves on me and expect to land a blow, puh-lease." The boy ran at her with an animalistic cry, throwing whatever he could at her, no skill. She blocked effortlessly, landing quite a few blows to his chest, sides and legs.

"Fuck, what the hell happened to you?" He demanded, gasping for breath as she looked as calm as a still lake.

"I learnt martial arts and gymnastics. Very useful. Now, I'm afraid, I'm going to have to kill you."

"I think not. I learnt some pretty neat tricks of my own." He stood up straighter. "See when you left we got a asked a bunch of questions," his voice was changing, the words and patterns becoming those of someone else, "that were meant to lead to the discovery of what happened. But then, it was already known what happened. We wanted to know why."

"We?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "You were answering the questions, not asking them."

"That's where you're wrong, Miss Grey. You see this boy was very helpful…"

"You're talking in the third person Alex, stop being a moron."

"But I'm not Mr. Patterson." Suddenly there was a contorting of features, muscle spasms and green lines that ran over the boy. She took a step back as the morphing was complete. "I'm your worst nightmare."

"Who the hell are you?" She asked the man standing before her in a suit, immaculate, not a hair out of place.

"I thought you would have recognised me, Miss Grey. You are known for your ability to remember details others forget."

"You." She hissed, fingers curling into claws. "You killed him. Or you tired to." She paused.

"Correct Miss Grey, I killed Mr. Banks." She shook her head.

"No, you tried to, but you were too late, he was already gone when you arrived. You shot him, the coroner was right."

"You seem so sure, Miss Grey, that the boy is alive. I assure you, he is not." She laughed,

"He is." The man let a twisted smile touch his lips.

"That is of no importance now. You see, even if he is alive, you won't be. There will be no happy reunion, and your body will end up rotting somewhere. Just like his."

"You think you know everything. You don't. Tell me my name, then I might believe you."

"Miss Anna Delta Grey. You lived in the apartment over there." He pointed. "You went to school, you did well in most classes and your only friend was Mr. Jason Walter Banks. Both of you will be dead by the end of this. After all, one already is."

"You know, for someone who looks like an Agent, you are really stupid. I asked for my name, not that crap that was fed to me."

"Your name is Miss Anna Delta Grey."

"And yours is Mr. Richard Head." She smiled, eyes not leaving his. "You don't scare me."

"Then you are stupider than I thought." He attacked, she blocked, forced to move backwards in an effort to keep from being hit by the suddenly skilled fighter. Her back touched the cold bricks.

"What, no askance for mercy, no request to spare your pitiful life?" He was holding her slightly off the ground by her throat, face inches from hers.

"No, I wouldn't ask, I'll just take it for granted." Swiftly she pulled the gun from her side, firing into the man's forehead, he was so close he had no time to move. The body fell to the ground with a thud, shimmering back to the image of the boy from before. Leaning her head against the support, she pulled out her phone and waited for an answer.

"Operator."

"It's done, Link. It's done." She crumpled, dropping the phone, the gun, landing close the dead boy's feet. At the entrance of the alley, the code was falling away, line by line, into the white construct. The girl didn't see it, her breathing all the man at the other end of the communication could hear.


	12. The rescue

The ship landed as the first body fell. Neo was the quickest down the ladder, catching a glimpse of Link's face, the girl had just fallen.

"What is it?"

"You better hurry, she just collapsed." Neo swore, grabbing a weapon as he sprinted out of the Neb and into the hull of the Argive.

"Where's Neo?" Trinity hardly paused as she landed, her voice breathless.

"Already gone."

"Arre?"

"She's stuck in the program, which is deleting itself."

"Shit."

"That's what Neo said." Link said with a wry smile.

"I'm going after him."

"Be careful Trinity." The captain's deep voice made her run faster than she ever had before.

"Someone get her out!" The men looked at each other and nodded, the only one able to, settling himself into the chair. Sometimes the smartest things she said were thrown over her shoulder.

"Are you sure you want to do this Sir?"

"There would be no point saving one if the other were dead."

"Ok, I'll patch you straight in."

*~*

The alley was now almost square, the head of the boy looking like someone had attacked him with a belt sander. The captain lifted the limp girl into his arms, making the call.

"Get us into the white Link."

"You're there, I'll be there in a moment."

"Thank you Link." The girl vanished, the captain assessing the construct in a new way as he waited to open his eyes on his ship. There was so much power in even the most basic of simulations, and it was able to be used either for good or evil.

*~*

The face of his Op greeted him as he saw the real world again.

"She's out cold, but breathing."

"Are the others back?"

"Yeah, they found him."

"And?"

"He'll make it."

"Good."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The ship was very quiet for some time, the girl and the boy that had been rescued exhausted, they stayed asleep for a few days. Trinity and Neo seemed to have many questions but they didn't ask. Morpheus wanted to find out what had happened on the unlucky ship and spent a few hours searching it, coming back to his own craft silent and, for him, pale.

"I wish never to see something like it again." No one asked what he had meant, aware that when all those with plugs had been killed via the EMP blast suddenly cutting them off from their residual self images, those without had been brutally murdered. In the case of the killer, she had taken a cable and now dangled from a grate, feet swinging.


	13. The reunion

Pushing through the layers of sleep and blackness she tried to find the constant that had kept her sane. It wasn't there. Panic gripped hard around her heart, hastening it. Worst case scenario was too much to bear and she would know, but then the crew wasn't of the same opinion as herself, they might have kept her alive. The fuzziness began to clear and the cold wall greeted her eyes. Struggling against the weight of the blankets she realized that there was something very wrong. Since she couldn't get out of bed unassisted, the girl called for someone, or tried to, her voice failed to be more than a scratchy noise drowned out by the unnoticed sounds of the ship. Fighting back terror she gave a final effort at escaping from the confines of the blankets. Pausing for a second to assess her success, breathing heavily, she realized her cheeks were wet, her lips salty. Frowning she lifted a hand gingerly to her face and found the tell tale paths of tears. She swore croakily.

"I don't want to have to wash your mouth out with soap for that," a voice said from the direction of the doorway, only slightly more audible than her own. Craning her neck around she tried to see the owner, who laughed at her, moving towards the bed. The weight felt so familiar she daren't breath incase it as a dream. A cool hand touched her brow and suddenly she was looking up into familiar eyes, having found the strength to maneuver to see him.

"Just as determined as ever, hey Gale?" His mouth twitched upward in a smile and she struggled under the blankets once more, worming her arms free before looping them around his neck and hugging him.

"I met the Fai, I met them."

"Me too, he saved me."

"I knew he would." For a moment they said nothing more, he had pulled her upright, arms enfolding her, clutched around her thin waist.

"I've missed you so much Gale."

"I've lost count, are you mad." The words were still at the other's ear, the pair refusing to let go. Some time later, a very worried Neo walked in.

"There you are!"

"Can I say it?" Trinity asked behind him.

"Don't you…"

"I told you so." She smiled, slipping past him and calling the girl's attention away from her newly found friend.

"Thank you!" The girl cried, eyes bright with joy.

"You both need rest," the woman said mock sternly, "unless you promise to be good and quiet we'll have to take you to separate rooms and lock the doors." The horrified looks were enough to convince the adults there would be no more disturbances. They left in silence.

"Morpheus wanted them to be apart until they healed."

"They wouldn't heal without the other, he knows that."

"Like I wouldn't have come back without you." She didn't look at him, silent as they walked back to the Core, they had work to do.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Neo ran his fingers softly through Trinity's hair as the lights changed to simulate day. 

"Do I have to get up now?" He smiled softly, watching her eyes open heavily when he didn't answer. "Alright, I'm up." She ran a hand through her hair, sitting upright. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed he was already dressed.

"I was thinking."

"About?"

"Them. I don't want them separated. It would be more than cruel."

"We can't have them here, too dangerous for all involved."

"There's a solution, I know it."

"We'll find it Neo, we'll find it together." She reaches for her clothes and slips them on fluidly, walking stride for stride with Neo as they head to the galley. Something makes her stop. A moment later he hears it, laughter, bright and happy, fills the metal walls of the Neb. The girl is laughing over her breakfast, exactly as Trinity had seen in her mind what seemed like an age ago.


	14. The Epilogue

Epilogue

*~*~*~*

"Is there a list of ships?" The woman handed over a disk, inserting it into a viewer.

"I don't think you'll find anyone you know on it Trinity."

"I want to check." The Hammer was quiet, the body of the One lying not so far aware, within an arms length. She still wouldn't leave him. The other woman left in silence and the dark haired warrioress watch the names and faces scroll past. Most were unfamiliar to her bar via communications and occasional meetings in the Matrix. She stopped for a moment, stilled completely. The faces that were side by side making her heart ache. The word formed on her lips even as she registered the truth. Casting a glance at the man who meant more to her than she could ever say, Trinity turned the monitor off, removed the disk and placed it on a table. Silently she lay her head lightly on his chest.

"We're on our own Neo," the tears had yet to touch her voice, "we've lost them." He didn't reply, his heartbeat still even beneath her ear. She had no way of knowing that the bodies had looked like that. He had fallen first, the girl rushing to his side only to join him moments later. The words the boy had said as they had left the Neb echoed in Trinity's ears.

"As long as there is breathe in our bodies, we shall fight for you above all else. We have a duty to the pair of you and nothing will stand in our way." He had walked down the ramp then, hand in hand with the girl who had found them. She had turned back and smiled.

"One day all there will be of us is a name on a file, but you will be great Trinity. No matter what, someone will miss you and think of you when you're gone. Take comfort in that. The rose blooms for you and he, we're just the gardeners." She had waved, turning away. Trinity, resting her head on the warm platform of her love's chest, closed her eyes.

"You are more than a file, Harregale Deephaze. I will not forget you." The image of the girl's smile the morning they had first heard her laugh in joy flashed into her mind and the warrioress finally allowed the tears she had been holding back to seep out. Later, the woman who had given the disk to Trinity was overheard complaining that the infirmary door wheel needed checking. She had been trying to get back into it for almost an hour but each time she had touched the metal it was as though she had pushed her hand through a rose bush. It was unexplainable.

~Fin~


End file.
